Trump's Defenders Keep Turning to False-Equivalence Propaganda to Defend Him

Nikki Haley pulled the ripcord on her Trump Experience earlier this month. The U.N. ambassador is hoping to escape the all-too-common Trumpworld fate, where the dismissed apparatchik is left to trudge out of the White House with his reputation in tatters—and, somehow, with a cushy gig already lined up spewing nonsense on cable news or lecturing students at the Harvard Institute of Politics. Perhaps all that awaits, or perhaps Haley still thinks she'll be the vanguard of The New Republican Party. You know, like Marco Rubio was.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Anyway, as part of her departure announcement, Haley released a statement in which she promised, "I expect to continue to speak out from time to time on important public policy matters." Apparently, speaking out means spinning the same bullshit false equivalences that all the president's other propagandists use to defend him.

I have struggled w/ what happened in Pitts bc it’s so similar to what happened in Chas. The country was very racially divided @ the time. We didn’t once blame Pres. Obama. We focused solely on the lives lost & their families. Have some respect for these families & stop the blame.

Maybe no one linked President Obama to the Charleston attack, in which a white supremacist walked into a black church and shot nine black congregants to death, because Obama did not advocate white supremacy or political violence. In fact, the people who talk about the "racial division" during Obama's tenure never actually point to things he said or actions he took that contributed to that division—except, of course, his decision to continue Presidenting While Black. This is one of those things that has been repeated so many times on Fox News and talk radio that a third of the country simply accepts it as fact: Obama stoked racial division. In reality, the racial division was stoked by one side, the side that was home to people—led by Donald Trump—who suggested the first black president was not a citizen of this country, and thus illegitimate. The side of "ObamaPhones" and "The Food Stamp President." On the most extreme fringe of that side was Dylann Roof.

Does that seem harsh? To link the Charleston shooter's decision to commit mass murder to an atmosphere raised to a fever pitch by extreme rhetoric from politicians and their media allies? Here, via The Charleston Post and Courier, is someone who seemed to agree:

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Haley, who endorsed then-candidate Marco Rubio ahead of South Carolina’s primary, said she has vocally criticized Trump because “I know what that rhetoric can do. I saw it happen.”

She said she doesn’t think people who support Trump are racist or haters. “That’s a different kind of anger. They’re upset with Washington, D.C. They’re upset nothing’s got done,” she said. “The way he communicates that, I wish were different.” Trump has a responsibility for the country’s well-being to use a civil, respectful tone, she told reporters two weeks ahead of the anniversary of the Emanuel shooting.

Again, we have the delusion about Trump's base of support, whom he's now trying to gin up ahead of the midterms with blatantly racist and xenophobic political stunts. But Haley is still pretty clear: Trump's rhetoric was irresponsible and fueling a dangerous atmosphere where the most extreme elements may feel empowered to take drastic action. Things have only gotten worse in the meantime, but also in the meantime, Trump became the world's most powerful man.

No, there's no denying a guy with a van like this had particular political leanings. So the president's allies turned to a familiar line of defense: the false equivalence. We can't blame Trump for one supporter's violent rampage, they said. We didn't blame Bernie when his supporter shot Republican congressmen at a softball practice. In fact, Fox News hosted Steve Scalise—who was wounded in the shooting—Tuesday to continue pushing the line:

Except Bernie Sanders never advocated political violence against his opponents from the podium. He never cast his opponents as enemies of the state. No one has produced any example that even comes close to it. This is simply a fabrication via different means.

Perhaps even God Almighty is afraid of The Caravan. Or perhaps the two sides are not the same. Perhaps the rhetoric that has sent hate and extremism coursing through the country is not coming from both sides. Perhaps the side that feels it is politically profitable is the one stoking it, encouraging it to grow and metastasize. Just today, attorneys for would-be anti-Muslim terrorists cited the president's rhetoric in seeking a more lenient sentence for their clients.

And here is a segment from Lou Dobbs's show last night on Fox Business, a network that seems extraordinarily unconcerned with business news lately—perhaps because all the stock market's gains for the year have been wiped out by a disastrous October.

Lou Dobbs' guest blames "the continued invasion of this country" by immigrants for "diseases spreading across the country that are causing polio-like paralysis of our children" pic.twitter.com/DM9a1sKNXX

There is nothing like this coming from the other points on the American ideological spectrum. It is only the extreme right, which increasingly seems to set the terms for the entire right, that has made up out of whole cloth an invasion of brown immigrant vermin from the south who are carrying polio and smallpox. This is nothing less than fascist propaganda. The sooner we all come to grips with this reality—and stop accepting disingenuous bullshit from people like Nikki Haley—the sooner we can try to halt this madness before it's too late. The Mainstream Media, which so often launders this both-sides nonsense into acceptability, will have to shape up fast. History tells us we're running out of time.

A Part of Hearst Digital Media
Esquire participates in various affiliate marketing programs, which means we may get paid commissions on editorially chosen products purchased through our links to retailer sites.